Friday, May 20, 2011

Well, we just survived our first trip without Mckinley. We have never left her before, and it really sucked leaving her. But she was in good hands (with my mom, sister, and sister-in-law) while we were gone.

We went to Las Vegas for a MetLife conference.

We ate lots of food and spent lots of time relaxing in the hotel room.

The best part of the trip was going to see the Beatles Love show by Cirque duSoleil. It was AWESOME!!! Now I want to see the O show. Bad. This is us on our way to the show.

We stayed at Mandalay Bay and it had a really fun wave pool, lazy river, and some other pools and hot tubs. The weather was only nice enough one day to go out to the pool but we enjoyed it while we were out there. It sure beat the rain we missed while we were gone.

It was cool to have the whole trip paid for, and all our food taken care of. It was awesome coming home to Mckinley today though. We missed her so much. She had the biggest smile on her face when she saw us again.

Now for some cute pictures from before we left.

Brandon and Mckinley all ready for Church with her cute little pigtails.

She loves playing outside and will touch the grass with a stick but not with anything else. :)

How cute are these two walking along the river trail?

This is currently my very favorite picture. It's going to become our computer wallpaper in just a few minutes.

We're back home for a little and then headed right back down to Vegas, I can't wait to bring Mckinley with us this time!

Monday, May 9, 2011

Okay, I have a LOT to blog about. It was a very busy week with Chandra's wedding, family here from out of town, and Mckinley's FIRST birthday. Before we get to the birthday stuff, here are a few other things.

I wanted to go to the Tulip Festival at Thanksgiving Point this year but I never made it so Mckinley and I stopped by Nelson's Grove Park on our way home one day and snapped a few pictures by the tulips.

They were gorgeous and it gave me my fix for the year.

All week long lots of time was spent on wedding preparations and Friday was the big day. It was also Annie's birthday (my sister-in-law). Here's a little family picture at the reception.

They had a candy bar which was awesome. We are enjoying all the leftovers. :)

Chandra, Roland, and all the grand kids.

Oh, I can't forget these pictures. My parents watched Mckinley for us while we went to the sealing and afterwards we had a little dinner with them before we headed over to the reception. Mckinley was LOVING this watermelon.

SO cute!

Okay, now I know this is a lot of pictures for Mckinley's birthday but come on, it was her first one! And she's our first kid, so of course we were super excited for it. (If it makes you feel better, there are 116 pictures/videos from her birthday celebrations on my computer, so this actually isn't very many.)

To start out the day, we made Mckinley her favorite thing for breakfast. Pancakes. I attempted a Mickey Mouse-shaped one like my dad used to do for us when we were little and I think it turned out pretty good. She ate THREE pancakes for breakfast. Yes, this girl likes her food.

Here she is in her adorable little birthday outfit. Her shirt says Baby's 1st Birthday.

We had a big lunch with all of Brandon's family and ate a bunch of the leftover wedding food. Mckinley's cake was a leftover eclair. She got it all over and rubbed her chocolate-covered hand in her hair.

Here are a couple pictures of her opening some presents.

In the afternoon a bunch of us went to the movies and saw Rio.

Later that evening we went to Carl's Junior for dinner. She wasn't in the smiling mood so I asked her to stick her tongue out instead.

I was playing around with her hair and was very surprised to see that it fits in pig tails! So cute. Of course they lasted for about a minute.

A family picture on her birthday.

We went back over to Brandon's parents house that evening to spend some time with his sister who is in from out of town and Brandon's dad wanted to take Mckinley to the park for her birthday. It was a little chilly and she was tired but we bundled her up and went anyway.

Going down the slide with Grandpa.

On Sunday we celebrated with my family. Here she is with her new phone she got from Dallin and Shellee (she loves it). Look at those little toes!

Opening the new train my mom got her. Thank you so much!

My brother had been wanting to try out these chocolate cakes from Costco and decided Mckinley's birthday would be the perfect time. That thing was so rich!

Mckinley didn't waste any time digging into it. I think she would have eaten the whole piece if we let her.

At one point it looked so good that she decided to just go straight for it with her mouth and not let her hands get in the way.

The result:

The only bad thing about turning one was that she had to go to the doctor today and get shots. Oh, how this girl hates getting shots.

Her 12 month stats were:

Weight: 20.26 lbs, 37%

Height: 29 inches, 48%

Head: 18.6 inches, 95%

It was a busy but great weekend. Mother's Day was awesome too. We had dinner's at both our parents houses. The boys did all the work for both dinners. My dad had a separate table set up for all the women and we ate on China while the boys and kids ate on paper plates. It was cute.

We can hardly believe Mckinley is one. She has made our lives so much better and we couldn't love her more!!!

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Mckinley will be ONE. That sure crept up fast. But it's been an awesome year. Awesome doesn't begin to describe it actually.

On Tuesday night this week we went to the temple with Brandon's sister for her first time (she gets married tomorrow). There were two highlights on this temple trip. Being picked as the witness couple and the secret note my little sister left me under the bathroom sink. She's in the MTC and happens to have P-day on Tuesdays which is when we went to the temple so she told me she would leave a note for me stuck underneath the sink in the bathroom and I went and found it and it totally made my day. It was so cool! I almost forgot to look.

Anyway, the main point of the story is that we went to the temple and my sweet mother watched Mckinley for us and Mckinley had her first sleep over at Grandma's. Any of you that really know me know that I love sleepovers and I spent a larger part of my childhood sleeping over at my grandma's house and I'm so excited for Mckinley to be able to do the same thing. It was the first time we have ever been away from her for the night. She was awesome. Slept the whole night through and was an angel. Brandon was moping around all evening missing her like crazy. It was pretty much the cutest thing you've ever seen. I really honestly don't know if any dad has loved his little girl more than Brandon. She is one lucky girl. (And so am I.)

This is a picture of Mckinley pushing her cousin Sam around in a doll stroller last night. Man, these kids are cute!

And just because I can't help it, here are some more pictures of her sleeping. We are totally in the mode of taking as many pictures of her asleep as possible.

If anyone ever needed proof that Mckinly is in fact my daughter, this is it. I always sleep with my knee bent like this and often with my hands up too. Oh, I love it.

Another one with the blanket over her head. :)

I had to include this picture too to show her cute wings. My hair totally used to curl on both sides above my ears when I was little. Only difference is my hair was super blonde and I didn't get any of it till I was like 2. Anyway, her hair is starting to show some curl and Brandon and I both love it!!

This week has been pretty crazy with wedding preparations. I wish we could focus more on what is actually important (the sealing) instead of all the reception fluff. Could someone remind me of this in 20 years when Mckinley gets married?